Hidden treasures.

[gridlore]

I just found a treasure trove of stuff in an old storage box. The Chronicle Extra from the Loma Prieta quake. The San Jose News from the Apollo 11 landing. One of my father's photo albums from before he came to the US. My Great-Grandfather's military records. Amazing stuff. Need to get some of these photos scanned in. There's one of my father in his cadet uniform that I'd love to put up with one of my portraits from Infantry OSUT. Photos of my Great-grandfather taken during the Boer War (He fought at Elandslaagte and was one of the besieged troops at Ladysmith)... enough documentation to make ancestry.com sit up and beg. I'm going to get it all organized and entered, and see what I get from it.

Oh, and an autographed photo of Louis Armstrong.

Comments

[fimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Do you know the story that goes with the photo of Cousin Louis? (Daddy always called him Cousin Louis because so many people asked if we were related to Neil Armstrong)If so, would you share it?

He rests in the cemetery around the corner from me, not too far from where Daddy reposes.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

No clue at all. He was a huge jazz fan (some of the photos from England are of him and his friends at a London jazz club's boat excursions.) He and I did not get along very well until near the end, and I missed out on a lot of family history as a result.

I remember the grave well, you showed it to me when we were walking around that first day.

[murphymom.livejournal.com]

Chuckling at your comment, because we always referred to Willie Nelson as "Cousin Willie" - then I met my birth family and found out there was a Nelson thread there, and I really did have a Cousin willie Nelson.

[fimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! I forgot I showed it to you. That seems like a lifetime agao. (Wry grin)

[claidheamhmor]

Wow, that's really cool! Must be fascinating going through the stuff. I take it your great-grandfather was an English soldier during the Boer war?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Yup, with the 1st Devonshire Regiment of Foot. Sergeant-Drummer John Berry. Served in South Africa and India, and died shortly after retiring from what sounds remarkably like Hodgkin's Disease.

[claidheamhmor]

The military runs in your family?

The Boer War was quite a tough one for the Brits.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Back to my Great^4 grandfather at least, and by family legend back to the New Model Army and beyond. My grandfather was a Colonel who spent much of WWII as a liason officer to Patton's 3rd Army, dad served briefly in the post-war British Army before being demobbed in the general draw-down of the early fifties. I, of course, broke tradition by not serving Queen and Country and instead swore to defend the Constitution.